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1 hour leak test = dead pump...

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Temo Vryce

Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2001
After years of trolling the forums I finally took the plunge and put together a water cooling setup. It contained a Switech Micro Res and Storm CPU Block. I believe the rad is a Black Ice single, but I could be wrong. The Block is DDC or variant there off with a Petra's top I installed myself. I ran it with Tygon 1/2" Silver tubing. The plumbing of the loop went well. I was able to bleed 99% of the air out of the system quicker than I expected. So I thought I would just let the pump run for the leak test. Only the pump was running no fans or other components were plugged in. I went outside to clear the snow (1 - 2 feet of it) off my driveway. An hour later I came back inside and found the pump had stopped running and was rather warm to the touch. I turned off the power supply and let it sit for a little while, when I tried it again nothing happened. I'm pretty sure that the pump is toast and I have a replacement on order with rush delievery as I haven't had my computer running since Sunday. What I would like to know is if I did anything wrong. I do not want to repeat this with my new pump.
 
Doesnt sound good....was it new?
doesnt sound like you did anything wrong tho.
 
Sam______ - The pump was used. Thanks I'm glad to confirmation that I didn't putz it up.

Adragontattoo - I shook the case a little when it happened. I'll have to remember to try that tomorrow. I'm at work now and I'm usually too dead to anything once I get home after doing tech support all day.
 
did u check the voltage of the 12v rail? if im correct in thinking the DCCs use the PSU. If its low then you would put a load on the 5v rail to raise the 12.
 
Thats something else that I can look into. Thanks for the suggestion Sam__
 
try to shake the pump and see if either something hung the motor up or it locked up with an airbubble.

Yes. The worst thing for a pump is to run it dry. I found that when bleeding air out of loops, if you can manipulate the case and turn it around and rock it up on it's corners etc help bleed air out of tricky places.
 
To the best of my knowledge there were no major airbubbles in the lines. When I first filled the loop with water. I would turn on the power supply for a second or two and then turn it off to bleed the bubbles. I did this quite a few times to get the major bubbles out without damaging the pump.
 
is the pump still in the loop?

If yes then unplug system from all external cables, tilt system to see if any and all bubbles are out.

You will have small bubles for a good amount of time even after you fill the rig, more hten likely all you did was catch a bubble.

If no, place some tubing on the outlet and intake, fill bucket with water, suck on intake to prime, turn on and test.
 
You guys keep coming up with these great ideas I'm going to be very busy tomorrow. The pump is still in the loop and bolted to the bottom of my Thermaltake Armor. I'll see what I can do with it though.
 
I seriously doubt that some small airbubble is going to kill the pump. That simply sounds like baloney to me. I fail to see how airbubbles are going to "lodge" in a DDC with Petras top. As long as the pump had a good constant inlet supply of water, it sounds like you just got a bad used pump.

Checking the 12v rail voltage however may not be a bad idea, but the DDC pumps will start with only 9v if I remember right.
 
I seriously doubt that some small airbubble is going to kill the pump. That simply sounds like baloney to me. I fail to see how airbubbles are going to "lodge" in a DDC with Petras top. As long as the pump had a good constant inlet supply of water, it sounds like you just got a bad used pump.

Checking the 12v rail voltage however may not be a bad idea, but the DDC pumps will start with only 9v if I remember right.

I have 4 fishtanks, ranging in size from 15 to 55 gallons and have been keeping fish for over 10 years.

All have a powerhead on them and I can show you within about 2 minutes how to lock a pump up with air, remember air can compress but water cant. the pump will try to spin but it is basically in a quasi-vacuum because the air cant be expelled and the water cant be pulled in.


It is VERY easy to lock up a pump and it doesnt take much effort either (usually if you TRY to do it, it wont work). I doubt that the pump is fried either, it is probably locked up but it MIGHT need a twitch of the impeller to get it going again.
 
Air and pumps dont play nice !

I have 4 fishtanks, ranging in size from 15 to 55 gallons and have been keeping fish for over 10 years.

All have a powerhead on them and I can show you within about 2 minutes how to lock a pump up with air, remember air can compress but water cant. the pump will try to spin but it is basically in a quasi-vacuum because the air cant be expelled and the water cant be pulled in.
QUOTE]

Your spot on Adragontatto even in heating systems (4-6metre head pumps) here in EU we use pump that work on the excate same principals as these liquid pumps and if the pump is not bleed of air properly it will over heat and burn out the motor along with the bearrings cuz they use the liquid passing through them to cool the bearins which in most good pumps are ceramic.
Also Temo Vryce the pump axis has to be on the horizontal if not it will put undue stress on the bearings and fail prematurely or burn out.
If the pump was hot to the touch more so than normally thats a good sign that it is burn out and that the impeller was stuck (perhaps by a pit of dirt or air) and then they only have a certain life span measured in hrs ????
One other thing ive noticed with some suppliers of componets they show the res. down on the base of the case with the pump to me as a Plumber thats dodge to say the leased the res should be the highest componet in the case to keep every other componets top up and to give you a true in dication of the water level. if its at the base with the pump every thing above it will run dry before the res. shows any sign of a drop in water (just a thought)
 
Small update: I got replacement pump today. A brand new Switech DDC. I was able to swap the pumps without pulling the Petra's top out of the loop and I only spilled 2 drops of water. :D

I think that I may have pooched the old pump. My reasoning is that when I was trying to bleed the system I had the case tilted to elevate the res even more. This put the pump at about a 30 degree angle. The pump was rather warm to the touch. I've got the old top back on. I'll try and pump some water from a bucket to test it.

Thanks for all the advice guys. I hope to have my system back together tomorrow with pictures.

P.S.
The res is the high point of the loop, feeding directly into the top of the pump -> CPU Block -> Rad ->Res.
 
Last edited:
Quick update:

My System is upand running. My Idle temps are arround 30 degrees C. I'm going to let the ArticSilver Ceramic set for a couple of days before I hit it with Pi. Thank you once again to all those that helped in here.
 
I haven't had a chance to test the old pump. But I don't much hope for it.
 
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